Joe Biden Said He Had One Regret About Not Running for President

Vice President Joe Biden has sworn to work with the Trump administration—and eagerly so—in the nonpartisan fight against cancer. At SXSW Sunday, Biden and Dr. Jill Biden spoke optimistically about their Cancer Initiative, and Biden stressed the importance of federal funding for cancer research.

"Billions and billions of dollars comes from taxpayers," Biden said, according to Business Insider. "Your government, that many of you don't like, is the vehicle of how this gets done."

Trump has not specifically addressed the Cancer Moonshot Task Force, the precursor to Biden's Cancer Initiative. Secretary of Health Tom Price said in January, however, that he opposed the Cancer Moonshot because the former administration "always [wanted] to add funding on, they never want to decrease funding somewhere else." But, he said, "We're all in favor of increasing funding for cancer research." While Biden called cancer research "the only bipartisan thing left in America," federal support for science and research is dubious at best under Trump. But Biden affirmed his optimism. "I'm confident that the new administration, once it gets organized—and I'm not being facetious—will be as enthusiastic of ending cancer as we know it," he said.

Biden also talked about his decision not to run for president in the wake of his son Beau's death from cancer. After announcing his non-candidacy in October of 2015, Biden recalled telling President Obama, "I have one regret in making this decision not to run. I would have liked to have been the president that presided over the end of cancer as we know it." Maybe—hopefully—Trump will be president when "cancer as we know it" is eradicated. Time, and federal budget plans, will tell.

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